Max Daely sat perched awkwardly on the edge of a metallic-colored leather sofa, staring wistfully towards the door. He breathed a heavy sigh, and took a gulp out of his cup, immeadiatly regretting it. A foul look swam across his face, crinkeling up his reddened face. Whiskey. He spat it out onto the zigzag patterned carpet. He looked up, hoping nobody saw. You see, things were getting out of hand on Earth. Parties crept up every day, and if you didn’t go, you were shunned. Whiskey was somewhat of a sacred item, and if you didn’t drink it, you were a disgrace. Max’s good friend, Clemm, had gotten his hands on a big ranch house, and was granted a party permit. That’s right. You heard me. A party permit. If you threw parties, you were a good citizen, but some abused that power, so now the state must grant you a party permit if you wish to be a good citizen. You almost had to be rich, though, because when Zilka Sande was elected in 5240, dollars were done away with, and the universal credits were introduced. The problem was that a case of twelve bottles of whiskey was three hundred credits. And the ratio from dollars to credits? One to one. The world worked unfairly, at the time Max spat out the whiskey, which is why he leaned to make sure no one saw. He could practically be evicted for wastefulness in this time, which is the explanation to why he jumped when a woman came up behind him and said hello. He flinched and turned, awkwardly waving after doing so. “Can I sit here?” the woman asked. Max nodded yes. She came around from the edge of the sofa, sitting down next to Max. Mam looked her down. She had fair hair, streaked with dark brown, soft freckles, and big green eyes. She, too, was holding a cup of whiskey, that appeared not to have been drank out of. His heart fell straight into his stomach as he reached out his hand. WHAT ARE YOU DOING??? His mind screamed at him. THIS IS A HUGE MISTAKE, it warned. He pushed the thoughts away, saying meekly, “I’m Max. Max Daely.” She took his awkwardly outstretched hand and shook it firmly with her warm fingers. “Roxxanne Willows.”
They both blushed. “I don’t much like it here,” said Roxxanne in her cute, slightly accented, voice. “Too many…” she tried to say people, but many of the guests were not, in fact, people. “Guests.” she said, deciding on a proper word. They both looked up at the congregation in the ‘party lounge’ they were in. Up at the front of the room was a bar, with a man working behind, mixing strange cocktails for guests. A small, purple man sat on one of the stools, talking to the man.
“Can I have a….” he had his hand up to his mouth, thinking, absentmindedly humming with a lisp. He pointed to a certain thing on the menu, and handed the man his SSC. The man behind the counter looked up. “You do know that we don’t accept Standard Space Cards, right?” Clearly the man didn’t know. Roxxanne looked back towards Max. He was positioned sideways, looking at the wall. Against the wall was a leaned-back man with blue dreadlocks. He was taking heavy breaths, knocking back his whiskey every few seconds. At his feet, a gun lay disarmed at the floor, the man intently looking down at it. Max wondered what’d happened to him. But they all had stories, stories of half-despair, and dreams that would never get lived. Because of the Overthrown, the broken bodies of Party Earth, at one point, they'd all lived in terror.
